According to a German study, the euro would have hurt the French in particular

According to the European Policy Center, France and Italy are the countries most in favor of adopting the euro due to sufficient reforms. Each French person would have lost 56,000 euros in the period 1999-2017. And the big winners are Germany and the Netherlands

A very serious German think tank to help Euroseptic intuitions … or advocates of the euro, depending on the position. According to a study by the CEP, European Policy Center, entitled "20 Years of the Euro: Losers and Winners, an empirical inquiry", the single currency would have largely taken to some countries what it did. others brought it, as it introduced

The center is part of the tradition of Freiburg's liberal-inspired school. The chosen method is to propose a change in GDP for each country, assuming that the euro did not exist. The projections were made by recreating virtually economic trajectories by using algorithms, themselves based on data from non-euro area countries. The think tank specifies that the influence of the independent economic events is neutralized.

A 56,000 euro condemnation by French

According to CEP, it is indeed Germany, the major winner of the launch of the euro, with an additional 1893 billion euros for GDP, over the period 1999-2017, a profit of 23,116 euros per capita. The Dutch won almost as much (21,003 euros), and the first time the Greeks did not suffer from the euro (+190 euros per capita since 2001). Asked to explain this strange result, CEP economist Matthias Kullas pointed out that Die Presse, regarding Greece, initially led to the prosperity of the euro, which was then destroyed by the economic crisis. from 2010. For Germany, no surprise: the country relied on the stability of the euro, in the continuity of the Deutsche Mark, to execute its high value-added products.

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Then start the list of losers. Although Spain and Belgium did not see their GDP per capita decline (-5031 and -6370 euros), the Portuguese suffered more from the single currency (-40,604 euros per person). And the two most affected countries are France and Italy, which lost 3591 and 4325 billion euros over 20 years, respectively, or 55,996 euros per French and 73,605 euros per Italian. The global balance sheet therefore appears to be fairly negative at the level of the European economy.

The End of Using Devaluation

With regard to the two red lanterns of the classification, the Center of European Policy mentions the importance of a dead economic policy instrument adopting the euro: devaluation . Since the end of World War II, France and Italy have actually used the devaluation of the franc and the lira to support their competitiveness. A practice with many benefits and setbacks, which was used last time in France in 1986, precisely to balance the value of the franc against the German brand and to defend the executives. Since the use of the single currency, the governments of both countries can no longer devalue and, according to the CEP, they have not started reforms which allowed them to make the economy more efficient and to take advantage of the euro.

Instead of advising France to regain control over its currency, thereby reducing the end of the single currency, the think tank emphasizes the importance of structural improvements to the economy. economy and state: "structural reforms are now needed". A very personal opinion on the French economic policy: "To take advantage of the euro, France must follow the path of President Macron's reform," the study reads.

Curves of GDP of France since 1999, in blue with the euro and in orange, A projection without the euro. CEP

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